Update on Taxi Stand on Sidewalk

I’ve been blogging about the placement of a taxi stand on the sidewalk in front of the convention center for years, with few results. In January 2007 I posted this video of a taxi exiting the stand via the pedestrian crosswalk:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRusfBYJ-_8

That prompted the Convention & Visitors Commission (CVC) to add bollards at the two crosswalk locations across Washington Ave.  This prevented the taxis from exiting onto the crosswalk but it didn’t address the primary problem: the former sidewalk was now occupied by taxis.  Where should the pedestrians walk?

Pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk in front of America’s Center has increased since the old St. Louis Centre pedestrian bridge came down but it has still been hard to capture the problem in still images or video.  But Sunday after the Rams game the sidewalks were packed and it became easy to photograph & video the problem with parking taxis smack dab in the middle of the pedestrian sidewalk.

The following video is seven minutes of people walking around the taxis, not riveting but telling of the problem.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CQb8asXp3A

Happily I think a solution is near, I will meet with the CVC next week to see a drawing of their concept on how to return the sidewalk space to pedestrians. I’m finally optimistic about the situation.

– Steve Patterson